NEW YORK (CNN) -- A Muslim man jumped to the aid of three Jewish subway riders after they were attacked by a group of young people who objected to one of the Jews saying "Happy Hanukkah," a spokeswoman for the three said Wednesday.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!----><!--===========IMAGE============-->http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/US/12/12/subway.attack/art.ny.subway.gi.jpg<!--===========/IMAGE===========--> <!--===========CAPTION==========-->The New York Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating Friday's incident on the Q train.<!--===========/CAPTION=========-->

<!--endclickprintexclude--> Friday's altercation on the Q train began when somebody yelled out "Merry Christmas," to which rider Walter Adler responded, "Happy Hanukkah," said Toba Hellerstein.

...
Another passenger, Hassan Askari -- a Muslim student from Bangladesh -- came to Adler's aid, and the group began physically and verbally assaulting him, Hellerstein said.

here is the rest (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/12/subway.attack/index.html?iref=newssearch)

AsifTheManRahman

December 12, 2007, 11:18 PM

The fact that the guy is Muslim has nothing to do with this, because it is unlikely that the Jews knew about his religious beliefs. Besides, I doubt the Bangladeshi guy knew that the Jews were Jews, or that the attack was over religion - when you're crammed into limited space on the noisy subway, dialogs often go unheard. This was an example of a man coming to the aid of some other men - something that many people would do instinctively. The media has no business bringing up the religious backgrounds of the parties concerned here, except maybe for the first part of the story leading to the cause of the attacks.

RazabQ

December 12, 2007, 11:31 PM

Interesting point Asif. Anyway, what with the BD cabbie returning a bag ful of diamonds (wasn't that also to a Hasidic jewish owner?), this has been a good year for brand Bangladesh in NYC! :)

Ehsan

December 12, 2007, 11:34 PM

Asif, Hassan knew they were jews. He heard them saying Happy Hannukah in reply to Merry Christmas. But I do agree that Hassan's attempt was to help a fellow human being which was portrayed by media using religious background, it was indeed a very courageous act. If you watch Adler and Hasan talking about it in the video then you will get the whole picture.

goru

December 12, 2007, 11:37 PM

I agree with what ATMR said... I'm sure the press love the sound of "a Muslim helping a Jew", but it really is a case of a good human being coming to the aid of someone in distress.

akabir77

December 12, 2007, 11:37 PM

if you watch the video the guy clearly says The bangladeshi guy knew we were jews but still he jumped in. Also they interview Hasasn were he says "the guy said happy hann.... nothing else...".

SO i guess all your assumption on not knowing what was going on or they r jews r not right...

And i think this is good that news like this come up. cause all we see is muslim blasting and killing by bomb or dad killed his daughter for not wearing head scurf.

akabir77

December 12, 2007, 11:39 PM

I agree with what ATMR said... I'm sure the press love the sound of "a Muslim helping a Jew", but it really is a case of a good human being coming to the aid of someone in distress.

Well there were other jews, chirstans in the train but the only muslim came to aid. now you do the match.

goru

December 12, 2007, 11:42 PM

Well there were other jews, chirstans in the train but the only muslim came to aid. now you do the match.

Are you trying to make a generalized statement that "only muslims are good people and come to the aid of others?" /:)

AsifTheManRahman

December 12, 2007, 11:45 PM

The point here is that him being Muslim doesn't have anything to do with him helping a bunch of guys getting the crap beaten out of them at a public place. Same goes for the receivers being Jews.

Ehsan

December 12, 2007, 11:46 PM

Are you trying to make a generalized statement that "only muslims are good people and come to the aid of others?" /:)

Oh please refrain from this...I don't think he mean that. It was a brave and humanitarian act. Adler says "when muslims gets portrayed as enemies of Isreal and Jews...a bangladeshi muslim comes to the aid...". In summary, muslims are not "BAD" as portrayed by the media, thats what I believe akabir and also Adler means. :)

Ehsan

December 12, 2007, 11:47 PM

The point here is that him being Muslim doesn't have anything to do with him helping a bunch of guys getting the crap beaten out of them at a public place. Same goes for the receivers being Jews.

Agreed, but media will do their job.

Nasif

December 12, 2007, 11:48 PM

Title was bit misleading, changed it a bit.

Rabz

December 12, 2007, 11:54 PM

Well, i guess the media is just trying to give a good potrait here.
Amidst all the negative, a little positive story, whichever way u see it, doesnt hurt.

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:04 AM

Agreed, but media will do their job.

The Adler guy is probably playing it up for the media more than anyone else. I didn't hear Hassan portray it as "helping jews against christians."

And going by the other posts in this thread, it's working.

Ehsan

December 13, 2007, 12:12 AM

Hassan did not have any reason for saying that, his help was not based on the religious background. Adler did because his attack was based on the religion, and he was touched that someone who is portrayed as the enemey of jews came to help them.

As Sydney said, this is just a rare positive remark about Muslims in American media, so I would not mind. :)

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:23 AM

Well, it's not like Adler's supposed to be aware of the average Bangladeshi muslim's apathy towards Jewish people. Who knows, Hassan might even just be as much a "muslim" as Zidane is...

Now if this was a devout muslim Arab from the middle-east, then you might have something there...

Orpheus

December 13, 2007, 12:25 AM

oh wow.. that dude got some balls! If it's one guy picking on one guy, it makes sense to join the victim to outnumber the attacker but against 20 or so people. Gotta handed it to this guy.... :notworthy::notworthy:

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:27 AM

oh wow.. that dude got some balls! If it's one guy picking on one guy, it makes sense to join the victim to outnumber him but against 20 or so people. Gotta handed it to this guy.... :notworthy::notworthy:

I'd like the media to portray it as "Bangladeshis have more balls than others" :D

al Furqaan

December 13, 2007, 12:28 AM

The fact that the guy is Muslim has nothing to do with this, because it is unlikely that the Jews knew about his religious beliefs. Besides, I doubt the Bangladeshi guy knew that the Jews were Jews, or that the attack was over religion - when you're crammed into limited space on the noisy subway, dialogs often go unheard. This was an example of a man coming to the aid of some other men - something that many people would do instinctively. The media has no business bringing up the religious backgrounds of the parties concerned here, except maybe for the first part of the story leading to the cause of the attacks.

arey bhai, your statement is correct, given the premise that the media is not biased against any one religion. that we all know is NOT the case.

this story will not come out on glenn beck or oreilly factor or anything. anderson cooper might mention it in passing.

so if the media wants to report 1 good story out of the tens of thousands of bad ones, who are we to complain?

al Furqaan

December 13, 2007, 12:32 AM

I'd like the media to portray it as "Bangladeshis have more balls than others" :D

haven't seen a bangladeshi kid stand up to 50 ton tank...nothing against bangladeshi kids, but unless your talking about kids in 1971 or a sidr victim, bangladeshi kids haven't seen the worst the world or humanity has to offer.

AsifTheManRahman

December 13, 2007, 12:35 AM

But we shouldn't be looking to earn a pat on the back for something that someone has done on purely humanitarian grounds rather than religious ones, just as we shouldn't be stereotyped against by people of other religions in the first place. Taking advantage of situations and shaping them to one's liking isn't healthy.

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:36 AM

haven't seen a bangladeshi kid stand up to 50 ton tank...nothing against bangladeshi kids, but unless your talking about kids in 1971 or a sidr victim, bangladeshi kids haven't seen the worst the world or humanity has to offer.

Okay, how about "Bangladeshi kid had more balls than other passengers on the subway" ... ?

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:40 AM

Taking advantage of situations and shaping them to one's liking isn't healthy.

Unfortunately, that's what the media is all about.

goru

December 13, 2007, 12:46 AM

Orphy, orphy, orphy... * shakes head *

(well, okay... that was funny... )

al Furqaan

December 13, 2007, 12:48 AM

Okay, how about "Bangladeshi kid had more balls than other passengers on the subway" ... ?

wtg!:flag:

Alien

December 13, 2007, 07:58 AM

Well there were other jews, chirstans in the train but the only muslim came to aid. now you do the match.

Well, how is that in any way relevant?

Moshin

December 13, 2007, 08:36 AM

well thats a good thing, a muslim helping a jew, did the bengali guy know
the guy was a jew he must have, because he probably wanted media attention
'a muslim helping a jew'.

Kabir

December 13, 2007, 09:51 AM

I've always seen media playing with the M and I words to do exactly what we are seeing as a common phenomenon today - make Islamophobia the ideology.

May be you guys are forgetting something here. This article is ridiculing Muslims by kind of portraying that none other Muslims would've done this, except for this Hassan kid. Do the semiotic analysis yourself, and you'll know what I mean.

It's well known that 99.999% of the Muslims of the world wouldn't have done what Hassan did. And so, all the good words should go to Hassan. It's neither about being Muslim, nor about being Bangladeshi. Hassan himself showed some courage...and now is suffering with a black eye. He might think about it again next time, if he finds himself in the same situation.

And may be you guys are forgetting that this happened in a subway train full of other riders...not in a dark alley. If it was in a deserted place, Hassan would've probably just called 911 at the max, nothing more. No offence to Hassan...coz he was the only man with balls who stepped in there...that should've been a slap on the other ball-less idiots' faces.

akabir77

December 13, 2007, 10:18 AM

Oh please refrain from this...I don't think he mean that. It was a brave and humanitarian act. Adler says "when muslims gets portrayed as enemies of Isreal and Jews...a bangladeshi muslim comes to the aid...". In summary, muslims are not "BAD" as portrayed by the media, thats what I believe akabir and also Adler means. :)

Thank you. I am not sure why some people doesn't want to give a little credit here. If they can jump to say all the bad things about muslims and i don't see and protest then what's the problem if we they jump here to give us some credit?

rubel_18

December 13, 2007, 10:48 AM

That was a very noble act by that guy, very nice of him.

Bengaliprince176

December 13, 2007, 02:17 PM

just coz hes muslim and the others a jew means nothing!! so what? i wud have stuck up for the Jew guy, coz hes not christian, and im not, ppl can belive in what faith they want. unless the Jew said it in a wind up way, then he got what was coming. the media as usual looking for an easy pay check so make interesting headlines...

I have no problems saying "Bravo!" to Askari for standing up for people being bullied. Several psychology experiments have shown that people, in general, are less likely to come to the assistance of someone in the presence of other people than they would be if they were by themselves. So Askari does deserve credit for bucking that trend.

On the other issue that has been raised in this thread, I won't deny that a large chunk of the "Western" media portrays the extremist acts of a small minority of Muslims as somehow representative of the whole. That said, I think Muslims also need to be more willing and outspoken about condemning the extremists among themselves.

I know that there are many who do; but it seems to me that there are far more who tend to look the other way or try to find excuses/rationales/justifications for extremist behaviour (see, for instance, the recent thread on the Pakistani girl being killed by her father) when it is committed by "one of us."

Alien

December 13, 2007, 09:28 PM

Lets put it this way, if another American on that train, say some Tom, Dick or Harry came to his aid and say that dude was a catholic, would you see the headline "Christian saved a Jew in subway"? No you wouldn't.

I am pretty sure the BD guy didn't check his background before helping him out. He went immediately when he saw it happening.

This is nothing but a bad journalism on part of CNN but again that doesn't come to any surprise.

Fazal

December 14, 2007, 09:57 AM

Askari was first handcuffed alongside them, but he was released when Adler told police he was not an attacker, Hellerstein said.

Hmmm Guilty unless proven innocent. The way media works, title could be easily "Jew Help a Muslim (from Polcie Harrasment) in NY subway."

Mr Askari said that he was "overwhelmed" by the publicity his actions have generated, and "embarrassed" that the American press have labelled him a "hero of the city". "I have friends who are Jews, Christians and Buddhists and would have acted in the same way if they were victims of an unprovoked attack," he said.

...

The student - whose mother, father and younger brother live in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka - says that his long term aim is to return to his beloved home country where he grew up as a child.

"Home is where the heart is and at least there is no subway there," he said.

haha! there may be no subway, but we have the streets! if one gets beaten up by another, others join in with the hope of deriving pleasure from a random latthi or goshta, and in the end we have a terribly beaten up young man. Drunken Americans in the subway stand no chance.

Nocturnal

December 24, 2007, 12:42 AM

interview link (http://www.nypost.com/video/?vxSiteId=0db7b365-a288-4708-857b-8bdb545cbd0f&vxChannel=PostNoAds&vxClipId=1458_209345&vxBitrate=700)
(the vdo is after Rihana ad.)

akabir77

December 24, 2007, 10:54 AM

tareq kinda looks like mashrafi doesn't he?

akabir77

December 24, 2007, 10:57 AM

wow

The slightly-built accountancy student - who comes from an aristocratic Bengali family - was travelling from home on 9 December when he saw the attack take place on a crowded train.
Mr Askari has three forefathers who were knighted by British monarchs during the days of the Raj and is a member of the Dhaka Nawab family, an important political dynasty in the Indian subcontinent.

Tehsin

December 25, 2007, 04:18 PM

Isn't there a saying about Nawab's having Hot blood ? Kidding.

Good on Askari. A human being helping another one. I guess it's such a rarity that it becomes news nowadays. I was under the impression that it happens all the time but rarely does it generate the news this story generated. I am happy for him.

If someone needs your help and the first thing that comes to your head is (race, religion, caste) then there is something trully messed up in your head. I'd think that my first impression would be (and I going to get beat up ? Can I take on 10-20 people and come out alive ? Am I GOING TO GET SUED for helping someone - which is a possibility by the way).

In a way, I'm glad the media brought out the muslim helping Jew bit because I am tired of only reading about the TARDS that are out killing people in the name of religion.

Another thing, there a lot of Banglai muslims that work with and for Jews. I didn't think it was a big deal for folks to befriend other folks based on religious/cultural background. This is not the 1900s. We've come along and matured a little over the last 100 years or so.

wow

The slightly-built accountancy student - who comes from an aristocratic Bengali family - was travelling from home on 9 December when he saw the attack take place on a crowded train.
Mr Askari has three forefathers who were knighted by British monarchs during the days of the Raj and is a member of the Dhaka Nawab family, an important political dynasty in the Indian subcontinent.

akabir77

January 14, 2008, 04:50 PM

news update on this story the guy was awarded by the us congress now...

sorry its in bangla

link (http://www.ittefaq.com/content/2008/01/15/news0621.htm)

Sovik

January 14, 2008, 05:20 PM

news update on this story the guy was awarded by the us congress now...

sorry its in bangla

link (http://www.ittefaq.com/content/2008/01/15/news0621.htm)

interesting story but more interesting was a news beneath that article

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/166/13700695ur1.jpg

akabir77

January 28, 2008, 04:45 PM

another update...

Hi All,<o:p></o:p>

Hassan Askari, a Bangladeshi born student at <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Berkeley</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">College</st1:PlaceType> in <st1:City w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:City>, who came forward to save Walter Adler and his Jewish friends from Christan extremists attackers on the Q train on the night of Dec. 7, 07 will be honored by President Bush in his State of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Union</st1:place></st1:State> address on Monday. This is a big honor for Hassan as well as for all Bangladeshi. He is our hero and we all should be proud of him. Please watch him in President's address on Monday.<o:p></o:p>

Cricket46

January 28, 2008, 04:48 PM

I just wanted to pass this important information that I just received from a friend. The time of the address is 8PM EST. If this is true it is a great honor. Please pass this message on to other Bangladeshis.

Hi All,<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p>

Hassan Askari, a Bangladeshi born student at Berkeley College in Manhattan, who came forward to save Walter Adler and his Jews friends from Christan extremists attackers on the Q train on the night of Dec. 7 will be honored by President Bush in his State of Union address on Monday. This is a big honor for Hassan as well as for all Bangladeshi. He is our hero and we all should be proud of him. Please watch him in President's address on Monday.

hey any one recorded that last night? it was too boring for me to watch the whole thing...

Cricket46

January 29, 2008, 01:42 PM

No such guy was invited. Atleast I did not see anything. The worst part is I let you guys know here and also informed a lot of friends and family. I am sorry for being part of the confusion. I would really like to know if anyone knows anything else about this. Someone here, mentioned Askari was his cousin's friend.

Bancan

January 29, 2008, 02:18 PM

According to NTV he was invited by some congressman and was honored there and later on he was introduced to the President. The President congratulated him and gave him a autograph.

Zunaid

January 29, 2008, 03:31 PM

He was invited. Given a ticket and also has a photo op with Bush - all this happened outside the main SOTU event. Here's NY1 on it:

http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=NUqTF01_NUUJ&imgurl=www.ny1.com/ny1/content/images/live/133/265283.jpg
NY1 (http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=77895)Subway Good Samaritan Headed To Washington For State Of The Union (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/7-0&fp=479f6871284ff6d0&ei=RIyfR9TrJYiKrQPi65yeAw&url=http%3A//www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp%3Fstid%3D1%26aid%3D77895&cid=0)
NY1, NY - <nobr>Jan 27, 2008</nobr>
Hassan Askari, 20, a Muslim college student from Brighton Beach, jumped in to defend a group of Jewish teens who were attacked on aQ train last month in ...

“What he did is something I would want my children to do, as perilous as it was, as scary as it was,” said Crowley. “And if you know Hassan, in terms of his frame, he's not a very big person – but he has a tremendously big heart.”

Puck

January 30, 2008, 07:44 AM

deep down we all carry the vestiges of some latent prejudice. we might not have been born with it but the culture we were brought up in ingrained this scope for prejudice within us. whether the object of our latent hatred are the jews, pakistanis, indians, americans or afrocaribeans, matter little. this isn't just an asian or bengali problem; it is universal and applies to all human beings. at a superficial level, these prejudices act out their worst attributes to the cost of human of civilisation. we kill, we rape, we pillage and to some the pillagers are freedom fighters and to others terrorists. that is the nature of life. we simply care a little less about each other than we do about ourselves :(

askari's act of bravery isn't just a bangladeshi standing up for the rights of an american citizen or for that matter, a muslim protecting a jew. the undertones are far greater and is a celebration of human brotherhood. askari is a young man, a member of the human race with the same blood and vesicles inside him as his jewish co-traveller. if askari is to be celebrated, let us celebrate his humanity, not his culture, cultus or racial origin. we done askari, you make us proud to be part of the human race.

Ajfar

January 30, 2008, 10:30 AM

we r talking abt racism in our communication class ryt now....so i had the opportunity of sharing this story in my class..

Puck

January 30, 2008, 11:50 AM

how did your classmates react to your story?

GoldenAsif

February 3, 2008, 04:36 AM

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haeeIvbdWYI

Quite nice and interesting to see, shows how human we all are.

mshakir56

February 4, 2008, 01:03 AM

Wow ! This is what you call real life hero ! Its somehow related action films though !